


The Road Less Traveled (By Virtue of Time)

by Firelight_and_Rain



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Future Fic, Gen 3 Nick, M/M, Past Relationships, Past Sole Survivor/John Hancock, Past Sole Survivor/Nick Valentine, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 06:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firelight_and_Rain/pseuds/Firelight_and_Rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No, it wasn't Sole who was left immortal, was it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to rework this one to bring X6 in, make the plot coherent, make it a fuller story ... but fuck it, I need to clear out my drafts. So maybe this will give me incentive.

Hancock had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t stick around after Carter passed, and he’d sworn it to them; not in so many words, of course, he knew that they wouldn’t appreciate that, but there were too many people mourning in Preston Garvey’s new-minted Commonwealth, and he didn’t fancy being one of them.

So he didn’t. But he came back one day, because he’d mortared his identity together with the help of the people of Goodneighbour and, damn it all, he hadn’t ever quite learned how to do it himself.

All that said, he suspected that he’d become a harder man in Carter’s absence. In Preston, and Codsworth, and Curie, and Nick Valentine’s absence. Now, that was an idea. The old circuitboard aged even less than he did. He was someone he could track down without fear that he’d missed the funeral. Provided he hadn’t gone and got himself cut up for scrap in the meanwhile. Old Nicky V had a worse sense of self-preservation than he did, as impossible as that might have been, and without Carter, who would have been there to fuss over him in return? Everyone loved Nick; but Hancock strongly suspected that his loss would never raise the outcry that was raised whenever anyone needed the synth’s help.

Yes, Hancock definitely needed to go see how Nick Valentine was doing.

*

Diamond City -

Aw, hell.

Why did Nick even like this place?

(He was aware that it made just as much sense to have gone to Sanctuary first. How could he not have been? But as painful as Goodneighbour and Diamond City were, it would have been infinitely worse to go back to Sanctuary, where Carter had built a home with all of their lovers, Hancock himself one of them, when he could spare the time, and their cobbled-together family).

(And there was guilt there, too, about leaving. In Carter, Hancock hadn’t been offered just one family member, just one love. He’d stayed, but he’d never given his all - in his mind, now, though at the time, Hancock could remember the surreal but inevitable morning that Preston had sat down next to him, comfortably, for such a upstanding soldier type he’d taken to Carter’s tentative and yielding approach to this thing remarkably well, and leaned over into his space to look up at him, and Hancock had to pause and adjust their hats and they both laughed, and then Preston asked, careful, how long he’d be sticking around, what he’d be sticking around for, what it was that he wanted, aside from company to pass the time).

John McDonough squared his shoulders and marched up to the doors, figuring that for all the fears he’d closed his eyes and marched right through, it was far past time this cesspit of a city joined the list.

*

Diamond City had sulked its way through the great era of the Carter reconstruction, and then, because Carter was far too smart to leave what Hancock had thought was his brother in charge indefinitely, it had embraced it like an eager child, and had been left in the dust by the Minutemen, and had rebounded, with plenty gaudy new additions.

Same old Diamond City as always.

Takahashi was where he’d always been. “Hey, brother,” Hancock told the robot, prompting the same rush of Japanese. So they hadn’t ever found his missing components? Ah, hell. Even Carter couldn’t do everything. Otherwise they’d still be alive, and Hancock would never have left.

*

“Been a long time since I’ve seen you around these parts.”

Hancock spun on his heel to face Nat, her voice gone almost ghoul-rough with age, but still he’d recognize it anywhere, which was a relief, if sad in its own way. She was taller than Piper, and plainer dressed, her smile steel instead of darting defensive sour-sweet, but she still looked so much like her older sister that his heart hurt to see her. He’d helped raise her, in his way, during the tail end of her childhood, or maybe he’d been more like an older brother, and now she was an old woman.

He was an old man too, but still the same foolish guy who’d made himself into a ghoul. And he was young for a ghoul, and had been too damn juvenile for any of the choices he’d made as a human.

“Yeah, I -”

“Carter. I know.” Her lopsided smile was still the most vulnerable, adorably awkward thing about her. “I’m just a little surprised that you came back in time for me to see you again.”

“Hell, Nat. I am too. Uh.” He reached into his pocket, and fiddled with a pack of mentats.

She considered him, than gave her sly Nat-smile, and stepped forward for a hug, and John hugged her back fiercely, feeling a sliver of the ice in his heart melt with a painful shiver. He closed his eyes and hid for a moment, and she lifted him up off the ground, because she could and because he couldn’t ever manage to keep on weight.

When she set him down, he had to ask, “I guess it’s too much to ask that I can meet up with any of the other old friends now?”

“Ah hah, well, Shaun’s still around. He’d like it if you dropped by. And Deacon is -”

“Holy shit. I always suspected that man was a synth.”

“Yes. And ol’ Nick. That man will be around until Judgement Day.”

Hancock smiled, a genuine smile. “Still has that old office, then?”

“Yes.”

“Does he have anyone with him?”

“I don’t think he’s got a new secretary yet.”

“So, in other words, no one to throw an old ghoul out if he comes to visit.”

Nat chuckled. “You’re not that old, Hancock.”

*

Though Hancock would never learn it, when he made his way like some sort of dream or homecoming to the Valentine Detective Agency, and opened the door to find no one inside as if Nick had just stepped out for an errand, he was mirroring the way Carter had begun to cross Valentine’s path, so many years ago before they had met synth or ghoul.

John restrained his curiosity and gave the office - house, it turned out - a cursory search. Though they had been - had been bound together in something adjacent to family, some sort of live-together situation thanks to Carter, he’d never spent much time in Nick’s house, and was hungry for anything to fool himself into thinking that it was, well. Was a first meeting.

It was full of mementos, the pre-war, claustrophobic, cloistering ones Nick’s, the harsh, practical ones, and the occasional irradiated plant, Carter’s.

Hancock watered the plants.

*

He slept in one of the two beds and thought, while drifting off, that it smelled like metal and oil. And nicotine. A lot of nicotine.

He woke up figuring that, well, at least he knew now that Nick had been home recently, though Nat wasn’t the type to get something like that wrong.

He lost his patience that evening and went to do Valentine’s job for him.

*

Asking around - Nick hadn’t acquired a new secretary but his informal network of helpers hadn’t deteriorated any - it wasn’t too hard to hear about Nick’s latest case. Not too hard, but still vexing. The Minutemen were thriving, but none of them were quite as batshit insane as their old General, and there were some problems that had gone back to being considered unsolvable. Except Nick had got wrapped up in all that stuff decades back by promising to solve an unsolvable case, hadn’t he.

So he’d gone out to some remote settlement to help them repair, shore up. Something like that. Hell, this detective work was harder than just wearing a costume, wasn’t it.

And being an adventurer was going to be harder than just following someone else’s lead now. He’d been doing it the sensibly way, recently. Damn, he missed his people.

At least the radiation couldn’t do anything more to his looks.

He adjusted his tricorn hat for confidence and set out.

*

There was a curious thing that Hancock found along the way of his amatuer person-finding attempt.

Just a little bit out of Diamond City, all mention of Nick Valentine seemed to disappear. Which was damn strange, because while a ghoul parading around in a Founding Father’s threads wasn’t an everyday sight, Nick Valentine was quite literally one of a kind.

*

It took longer than Hancock had been prepared for to find where Nick had, probably, ended up, by treating it like it were his case. What clues had Nicky been following? But if there was anything Hancock had, it was time. Provided that Nick hadn’t already wrapped the whole thing up and headed back to Diamond City.

The place he ended up was a miserable excuse for a settlement. Miserable excuse for a home at all, really.

But wasn’t that just the life.

Hancock hoped that no one would, despite the getup, mistake him for feral. He’d hate to ruin Valentine’s investigation or whatever by getting someone dead.

*

Not that they seemed happy to see him. It was the ghoul thing, had to be. And they obviously had no idea who he was. But when they finally coughed up that the problem was some Raiders sticking around to feed off of them - of course it was - then at least Hancock had a clean-cut task. He’d been through way too much to not be able to take care of a gang of two-cap Raiders. Granted, it was - worrying, where the hell Nick was, now that Hancock knew the root of the trouble, but. He was expected finish this thing off, anyway, wasn’t he? By anyone who counted.

*

The firefight was worse than he’d been expecting, but nothing catastrophic. It was a pitiable bunch of Raiders, but he supposed that even a pitiable bunch of Raiders could be fatal to the settlement that he was supposed to be saving. He stole some of their Med-X and a stimpack, and patched himself up before puzzling over the terminal in the basement.

It was too fancy to be someone’s strongbox from before the war. The metal wall surrounding it only ended at the walls of the basement, which added to that impression.

He still didn’t have much choice. He couldn’t leave until he at least had some clue about Valentine. Unfortunately, he’d never been the one with a way with machines. It took him a relative eternity to hack the terminal.

After he did, he was glad that he’d decided to hone the “killer instinct” even after making himself mayor, and that so many of his questionable life choices had landed him in precarious situations. He was thinking this while he had his back pressed to the wall to one side of the door, finger on the trigger of his shotgun, bowie knife heavy at his hip, feeling more than hearing the momentum of somethings coming through the doorway.

*

He lost the fight. Painfully, but not fatally, though the people and synths who were responsible were kind enough to take him out without shooting or bashing his skull in, he realized in the split second that he felt a small stab in his neck. A dart, probably. Who used dart guns in the Wasteland?

*

Except that they hadn’t figured on John Hancock’s built-up resistance to chemicals of all sorts. That might have been the break he needed. But even John Hancock was subject to a chem-induced hangover. And they used a syringe this time.

Bastards. He was going to find some way to kill them, for sure. Some way …

*

He really had to kick the chem habit, he thought to himself, on the verge of hysterical laughter.

He squinted up at the dingy grey ceiling until his vision cleared and the vertigo and the brain-fog cleared away.

“Urk.”

“You doin’ OK over there?”

John closed his eyes for a long moment. While if he were Carter, he’d be distraught at finding Nick in roughly the same predicament he was in, he was only John, and couldn’t be anything but powerfully relieved at hearing that instantly recognizable voice. “Well, I’ve been better.”

Nick barked out a short laugh. “Haven’t we all.”

John rolled over, sore and tired, propping himself up on one elbow - and nearly fell right back down.

That wasn’t Nick Valentine.

Except that this was the only place where it made sense for Nick to be and he sounded like Nick. No one but Nick Valentine sounded like Nick Valentine.

Alright, what in the world was going on?

Not-Nick was looking at him with very Nick-like concern. There were very few people Hancock had ever met who could wear that exact expression. Since Not-Nick seemed content to let Hancock lay there and ogle him, Hancock could take stock of more facts; that Not-Nick had the same heavy, angular features that Nick had, eyes that maybe could have been yellow, dark hair, and pale skin of a brown sort of tone, burned and roughened by the Wasteland but not nearly as much as it should have been. He was wearing a plain white shirt and pants. No cigarette. The hand he had pressed to his side of the glass - they appeared to be in holding cells, joy - was broad, long, with square knuckles.

He looked entirely human. Hancock being Hancock, he couldn’t help but note that, on top of the voice he’d always had, he’d turned into a looker.  
“Bit of a shock, ain’t it?”

“Am I high?”

“How should I know?” Not-Nick huffed. “I’d say probably, but you’ve been out long enough. Long enough to sleep off whatever the scientists here dosed you with, anyway.”

“The scientists?” Hancock decided to take Not-Nick at face value. Whatever was going on, whoever’s idea it was, they couldn’t have chosen a better face to fool someone from the Commonwealth than Nick Valentine’s. “Is this some kind of Institute idea?”

Not-Nick’s expressive lips twisted. “Yes.”

“Is that who did this? Not that it seems to be all bad.” Hancock gave a queasy smile, to clarify what he meant by that.

Nick didn’t seem to notice. “No, they didn’t do this, if you mean the new model. That was Carter.”

“So what do they want us for?”

“You? I think they want you just because you decided to bust through their front door guns blazing. They want me because, thanks to all … this, I’m the last bit of advanced synthetic technology in all of the Commonwealth.”

“Well, damn. We need to get you out of here.”

“You’ve got no arguments from me on that count.”

*

Since there was nothing to do but wait for an opening, Hancock scooted over to the partition, thin knees hugged to his chest, staring outright at Nick. “Do you know what they want you for?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” Pause. “What I wouldn’t give for a strawberry mentat.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a decent cigarette.”

This was the longest, to the best of Hancock’s knowledge, that Nick Valentine had gone without a cigarette in his mouth, this was true.

“About whatever it is these people want, I’m worried that it’s not gonna be very good for your newfound health.”

“Ya think?”

*

They’d been in an uncomfortable silence for some time when Nick said, “How you holding up?”

Which was the best proof Hancock could ask for that it really was good old Nick Valentine sitting next to him, across the glass. “I’ll be fine, but - thanks for asking.”

“Least I can do.”

Hancock gave him his warmest smile, something he hadn’t practiced in awhile, but Nick wasn’t looking at him, staring ahead at the door to his cell.

*

Hancock was already jittering with a desire for mentats, a smoke, something. He kept running his rough fingertips up and down the ruffles on his coat, adjusting his hat, monitoring every micromove that Nick made. Nick gave him a thin-lipped look of knowing disapproval, but didn’t move away from his spot, as near Hancock as he could be in their respective cells.

When tired-looking people in white lab coats and hard-looking people who were probably synths arrived in the hallway outside, Hancock said, “Got a better idea for showing some hospitality, gents?”

“It ain’t gonna work, Hancock,” Nick said, watching them, tense and wary, but sounded grateful.

“Aren’t you the optimist.”

Nick didn’t exactly go willingly, but he didn’t fight either, his defiance just a way to communicate his disdain. Hancock’s heart hurt to watch. They’d, all three of them, Nick, Carter, and John, had a thing about martyrdom, but Valentine did it best, no question.

“Hey, brothers, you’re behind the times. The Institute is gone, and you’ve just got your heads up your asses.”

One of the men in white coats glanced down at him, seeing nothing but an irradiated shell of a man in a ridiculous costume, and said nothing.

*

Now, Hancock wasn’t so down on science, and Atom knew he wasn’t down on chems, but whoever thought that the best way to off a guy who you’d disarmed in the first place wasn’t just a bullet in the brain, they deserved whatever they had coming to them.

They also obviously hadn’t made note of his ridiculous tolerance to near every chemical known to man.

As he said. Deserved what they had coming.

*

Hancock made an internal scoff at the sight before him. Wondered at the unfairness of Carter not seeing this tableau.

“Gonna lend a hand, Hancock?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your gears in a twist, brother.”

“Very funny.”

Hancock was careful to locate some iodine and cloth - gauze, even better - before lending a hand. He knew a thing or two about intravenous needles, even if anyone who trusted him as a doctor needed to get their head checked. He was just as careful as when he’d done similar clean-up for the various lovers he’d had over his lifetime. Nick made a game attempt at biting back his hiss of pain.

“I take it those new sensors are doing good?”

“Ah, go boil your head, Hancock.”

“Rude.”

Hancock wondered what it would take to get Nick to call him ‘John’ again. It had occurred to him a long time ago that maybe he didn’t because he was one of the few to know that his given name had had that same first name.

Hancock removed the wrist and ankle cuffs like they’d personally offended him. Nick sat up and pressed a fist to his temple. With nothing better to do presenting itself, Hancock started rooting around the room to see if there was anything worth stealing. Or maybe it wasn’t stealing since he’d already murdered the previous owners? Whatever.

“They did anything we should be worried about?”

“I won’t know until I can run a full diagnostic, but I don’t think so.” He folded his hands in his lap. “Thanks. For coming to my rescue. I sure didn’t expect it.” Nick smiled, one side of his mouth tugging up higher than the other. “You know.” He chuckled. “This is almost like how I met Carter.”  
If they were any other people, Hancock would’ve taken that opening to flirt with him.

“You’re gonna have to tell me how you got out one of these days.”

*

They couldn’t find Nick’s outfit. Hancock found his gear, including a can of Jet, and got high with a bone-deep sense of relief while Nick, clothed in Raider’s castoffs, gave a real disapproving harrumph and stood guard in the doorway, rather like Dogmeat had, back in the day.

Hancock didn’t and would never know that Nicky Valentine had been intended as a Courser, like X6, but if he had, it would have made a lot of sense.

*

Sometimes an irradiated wasteland could be so boring. Especially when it came to traveling. But John Hancock was a runner, and somehow the dirt of the road had gotten under his skin to beat like faint, far-off drums, probably a blessing when it came to immortality, certainly a blessing when it came to running chores in the Commonwealth.

He was a little worried about Nick. The synth didn’t have the memories of a wastelander. It was silly, he knew, but maybe it was just Nick’s incessant fussing rubbing off on the only other person around.

*

Nick made them food, and made damn clear that Hancock was going to eat his share. “You’re still too skinny.”

“Well that’s just not fair.” Hancock tried to use his eyebrows - or what was left of them - to communicate ‘it’s not exactly fair that Carter made you into a hunk while I was gone’, though he wasn’t sure why he even tried. Or didn’t just say it out loud.

“So. This new model. Not bad. How did that go down, exactly?”

“Well, Carter was set on that they weren’t gonna leave me with the old one. I - it wasn’t something they wanted ta push, but when one of the servos in my neck got busted, they weren’t going to let it rest. And I thought - well, it might not have meant as much to me, but if Carter was willing to make it happen, then I figured I should just take the gift.”

Hancock tilted his head to indicate that Nick should go on.

“So Carter found some nest of ex-Institute scientists and had ‘em fix me up. It was a bit of a shock to go back to … closer to what the old Nick Valentine had been, after all this time. Carter helped, of course.” Hancock had no trouble refraining from asking ‘so did you two take a tumble’, but the question was there, anyway. This sort of situation warranted that sort of question, but Hancock wouldn’t ask, because he’d known Nick longer than he’d ever known anyone, and almost better. They’d both known what it was to be half-men - and, it couldn’t be denied, Carter had known, too - and sex was, well. Not something that Hancock had ever put down. Something Nick had, not that Hancock knew anything about his life pre-War. Not something that Hancock was gonna bring up on some kind of assumption.

If Nicky ever did want to explore that part of this brave new world, well, Hancock’s reaction was a foregone conclusion. He was still John Hancock, for fuck’s sake. And old Nicky Valentine was a classic sort of handsome.

“It’s still taking Diamond City some time to get used to the change,” Valentine continued, with a chuckle. “But now that the Institute’s gone, I guess the fact of what I am isn’t such a deal-breaker anymore. I guess I’m still getting used to that change, too.”

“But - they’re not gone. Based off the guys who just tried to kidnap us, I mean.”

“Well, it would be just too much to hope that all the ones who got out saw the error of their ways.”

“Just a day in the life in the Commonwealth, huh. This means I should find myself another bodyguard, doesn’t it?”

“You? What do you have to worry about?”

“Well I’m not leaving this all to you, am I? Also, they already kidnapped me once. Who’s to say that they won’t keep up the effort?”

Nick stopped and stared at him, fork clamped between his teeth like one of his cigarettes. He removed the fork. “So it’s like that, huh?”

“Like what?” Hancock played innocent.

“Why you’re back in town after all this time. Wanted to catch up with old friends. Or.” He fiddled with the fork, balancing it between two fingers. “Something like it.”

Anything like it, yeah. “Is there anything better to do in the Wasteland? Because if so, I’d like to hear about it.”

Nick looked tired. He still looked shiny and new compared to so many of Hancock’s acquaintances (and he still wasn’t used to thinking about time in anything but smoothskin terms), but he looked tired.

“You know what? I think I’ll take first watch.”

*

They fell into a pattern as they made their way back towards Diamond City. Hancock at first trying to make conversation, and then, later, deliberately resigning himself to providing a framework for Valentine’s snark. It was fun, anyway. Both of them had always appreciated wit, and knew each other too well to worry when said wit crosses close to insult. A ghoul and a junked synth. What else was gonna happen?

It felt wrong, though, to see Nick Valentine out of the get-up that he’d always worn like a suit of armor. In shirts and jackets that somehow managed to fit better, dark hair constantly mussed from sleep, or from Valentine fussing with it. Wasn’t fair that he got to look more human than Hancock.  
He still wore more layers than Hancock, an exaggeration of an old habit that had made sense when he was half torn apart every day, but the exaggeration was odd. What in hell did he have to be ashamed of anymore?


	2. Chapter 2

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Son of a bitch.”

Nick didn’t say anything, just bent his head forward against the driving rain, and let his frantic ghoul friend clamp his fingers vise-like around his wrist.

When Hancock found what he was looking for - degraded by time, but standing, serviceable - he swore at the door some more until he managed to wrench it open with his free hand and all but threw Valentine into the sturdy sanctuary that Carter had built years ago. Nick still didn’t say anything, just caught himself and shook himself.

“Yeah, that might get some of the goddamn rain off but it ain’t gonna do anything for the rads.”

Nick coughed. “Do you have any Rad-away on ya?”

“I don’t know,” Hancock muttered, immediately starting to go through his pockets. “This place should still have purified water. That’s a start. And I can look for some stashed away here.”

Nick frowned, and Hancock left off his probably fruitless search of his pockets to push him towards where he recalled the shower being. Nick seemed to have caught on to the general approach quick enough, and was already shedding his hat and coat (both of them replacements, but both treasured the way Nick did anything to cover himself with) by the time Hancock had fiddled sufficiently with the shower to get it working.

The thing was, Hancock was a bit of a fiend in a lot of ways, sure. But he was a Wastelander, and in a lot of ways Carter had had the soul of a Wastelander. What use was thinking about sex when your smoothskin just got caught out in a radstorm?

Though no promises about after.

So Hancock was just confused when Nick stopped, finger looped around the top button of his shirt, and gave him a sidelong look. He barely even moved as the shower sputtered and started, dousing Valentine with cold purified water.

“Uh, Nicky? You OK?”

Nick didn’t say anything, jerkily beginning to divest himself of the rest of his clothes.

“Seriously? You OK?”

“Maybe you could give a guy some privacy.”

“Oh. Oh! Yeah, I’m gonna … go get some Rad-Away and be right back. Don’t die.”

Nick muttered “I’ll try not to” as John turned his back, already sounding more like his old self.

Now that was just weird.

It was the Wasteland. Who the hell had time for prudishness? And, yeah, Nick put a lot of stock into who he’d been before the War, and maybe John couldn’t blame him, since if he’d been the raw material for the Nick Valentine he knew … But he’d had a lifetime to get over that sort of foolishness. John had seen inside him, seen the gears and raw material. And Nick’d never been defensive about Carter’s methodical dismantling of shields between him and all the rest of their lovers. And Nick had qualified in that, more than the rest of them, whatever the private details Nick and Carter held between themselves were. Hell, Nick had already seen Hancock naked. On multiple occasions. And he’d usually rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling with a slight eye-crinkle of amusement, and Hancock couldn’t complain because he’d got worse reactions before. And it wasn’t like the guy had anything to be ashamed of now. And, and, and.

Hancock just wasn’t equipped to figure out what the fuck was going on. But, hey, everyone had their quirks. If his aesthetically pleasing centuries-old smoothskin friend wanted him to look for the Rad-Away without looking towards one corner of the place (what could he say? Carter hadn’t had the opportunity to put much effort into this one), then he could damn well comply.

Hancock comically tipped his hat down over his eyes once he’d found the Radaway, making his way back towards Nick by staring at his feet and listening. Hancock stopped when Nick’s naked calves entered his field of vision. The shower had been turned off. “So, you wanna do this yourself?”

Nick gave a surprised laugh at the sight of Hancock’s hat over his face.

“Wait, have you ever used a needle on yourself?”

“Yeah. I’m not that new.”

Hancock made a decision. “Maybe not, but I’d still trust me more with it.”

“You’re not just gonna let me get my way with this one, are ya?”

“Nope,” Hancock said, taking that as a sign of surrender. He hadn’t just found the Radaway, he’d found an old, ratty, but clean, towel, and he threw that at Nick now. He waited a beat before returning his tricorn to his head. Nick had fastened the towel around his waist, but was still more or less sopping wet. Nick remained tense, a subtle fact shown in the shape of his shoulders. John just extended the Radaway.

They walked over to the two chairs next to the cabinets. Hancock herded Nick into one of them, and pulled up his own, and skimmed his fingers down the inside of Nick’s arm to the most prominent vein. This didn’t cause goosebumps, because Valentine was already cold enough that all his hair was standing on end. Valentine did curl his fingers into a loose fist. Hancock pressed down with his pointer fingers an inch apart above the vein, to ensure that he’d found it, and then curled his left hand slightly into the soft skin of Valentine’s inner elbow, prepared the needle, and pushed it into the vein, unloading. Nick didn’t make any noise at the needle’s invasion, but Hancock was sure he’d felt it. Hancock awkwardly shifted Valentine’s arm back towards Valentine, and moved to dispose of the Radaway. Nick clenched and unclenched the hand of that arm.

“So,” Valentine started, voice traveling oddly in the atmosphere of that little room. There was something about that atmosphere. Hancock hadn’t wanted to look at it, had maybe wanted to slide out from under the weight of it, had wanted even less to break it. Valentine was speaking to break it. “This stuff - pretty common Wasteland chem, yeah? Any side-effects I should know of?”

Hancock forced a laugh, still feeling weighted down. “Yeah, you’ll figure that one out shortly. Just - don’t get caught out in any more radstorms? That stuff can be addictive. Figured you’re vulnerable to that now.”

Valentine frowned. It was a vaguely familiar frown, articulated differently on an entirely different visage, less exaggerated with his smooth, slick new set of skin. But he had eyebrows to work with it now. Though Valentine’s eyes had always been the most expressive John had ever seen.

Cheat. Hancock kinda missed having eyebrows. Hard to be a sarcastic bastard without them, sometimes.

And below the eyebrows, expressive, soulful eyes a kinda - some kinda liquor color, Carter could have been more eloquent. Above the heavy dark eyebrows, damp hair still plastered to Nick’s forehead, curls brought out by the water.

Probably not the only place with that same dark hair. Hey, hey Hancock. Be a fuckin’ professional.

Anyway. Valentine looked tired, hangdog, and also cold.

Hancock started trying to fiddle with the heater - Carter had hooked up a generator to this place, sad as it was - as if he hadn’t been staring. Or as if there was no reason he shouldn’t have been. He doubted Nick had missed that, Nick never missed much so - good to see him settling into the new incarnation.

Hancock dumped his clothes to soak in a bucket of more or less purified water on the off chance it might do something. They could dry in the morning, it wasn’t like either of them had anywhere better to be, really. And only found one more blanket in the place, which he awkwardly draped over Nick’s shoulder. Nick took it and hugged it around himself without comment. Hancock then dragged the room’s one battered old mattress over next to the heater. Nick finally gave in and raised an eyebrow at Hancock, the mattress, and the general situation.

“What? I know that smoothskins need sleep. And that you need to be pampered to actually get any. I know this, I know you know how I know this because you were there.”

“I suppose I was. Just not used to getting the royal treatment.”

“Damn shame,” Hancock said, and went to find them some kind of food.

*

When Hancock returned, not that he’d gone far, practically had just been looking in the other direction, Valentine was curled up as tight as he could manage on the mattress by the heater. If they’d been back at Goodneighbour’s State House, Hancock would have bundled Valentine up in his room with all the textiles he could spare. As it was, Hancock dropped down next to him on the mattress and prodded him in the shoulder, wondering if he’d already fallen asleep.

He hadn’t. They shared dinner, such as it was.

Valentine then rolled back over, facing the heater, and looked miserably cold again. The light was dying outside, almost dead. They weren’t going to create any lights inside the house. No reason to make themselves more visible, and Hancock could see the door plenty fine as it was. He assumed that Valentine didn’t want him spooning him, though John wouldn’t’ve minded sharing the body heat. Carter had always told him that he was a furnace in ghoul form.

Hancock took off his coat and draped it over one of the chairs. He then did the same for Valentine’s clothes after remembering where they were. He set the tricorn on the table, and settled down on the mattress, wary that Nick might object, but figuring that, hey, he might be a ghoul, but he was still a person, he wasn’t gonna sleep on the ground. Nick didn’t object. In fact, after a few moments of lying there while Hancock kept a wary eye on the door and the night and the flat wasted ground beyond it, John felt the tension silently go out of him. He stopped shivering quite so violently.

Later on, when John was sure that Valentine had fallen asleep, he felt the synth move the inches to press their shoulders together.

By the time John was himself falling into sleep, Nick had melted back into him, breathing deep and slow in sleep.


End file.
